busy busy week at Sega (July 14 - 20)
Last week was a fairly busy week at Sega. Monday, Kent College (a private high school from Canterbury in the UK) came to visit the girls. They sponsor a student at Sega and visited the school 2 years ago, and came again for a visit. On Tuesday, two employees from GlobalGiving came to see how Sega’s development is going, and how the school is using its funding. Then, on Thursday, someone from USAID came to inspect the new buildings that the funded the construction of. And on Friday, Sega staff had a special lunch for K’s last day and the students had a little goodbye party for her.
There was a lot of preparation for all of this throughout the week. The girls were busy throughout the week. They were doing a lot of “landscaping” around the campus, or as they say, “cleaning the environment.” They prepared dances and songs to preform for the USAID visit. A lot of the girls asked me if I would help them make cards for K, it was so sweet! During the goodbye party, they brought out their big speakers to play music and dance, then all of the staff came over and they had some skits and songs for K, it was really a fun celebration! After, I stayed around and danced with the girls (well, really, they were teaching me how to dance.. I’m probably the worst dancer there is).
On Tuesday, I also had to work with the Form 1 girls to write about themselves and then take their photos to email to the U.S. The grades/forms here are – Nonform, Form 1, Form 2, Form 3, and Form 4. In the Tanzanian school system, Form 4 students have to pass a national exam to move on to Form 5 & 6 and once they’ve passed national exams for those grades, they would then go to university, if possible. Anyway. The Form 1 girls don’t speak great English. During the morning assembly on Tuesday, I announced the girls who I needed to write bios. They had no idea what I was saying. I was speaking very slowly and in really simple English. But still, no clue. So one of the teachers suggested I just tell them to talk to me after the assembly. So, I just told them to come find me after. They all did, but I honestly still wasn’t sure if they knew what I was saying. I told them just to come meet me in the large banda at 5pm (after they had cleaned their environment – a lot to do before USAID came!). To prepare for this, I came up with a list of topics to talk about in their bios and tried to write it in Swahili so they would understand me better. I had Paulina, the counselor, help me translate a few things. They were also going to write these in Swahili and then I would have someone translate them for me. Since their English isn’t that great, they just wouldn’t have the vocabulary to write what I needed them to.
These bios are important for Nurturing Minds, the nonprofit in the U.S that supports the development of Sega. They’re used for people to learn more about the girls and where they came from, and to, hopefully, connect girls with people to sponsor them. The sponsorship program connects people all around the world with the girls. Sponsors are people who will help pay tuition for the girls – their families are required to pay a bit of their tuition, I can’t remember the exact amount. However, if a family cannot afford however much they are asked to pay, they don’t have to. I actually didn’t know this before, but I was really happy about it. As I learned in through my studies of Social Entrepreneurship, it’s important for these families to financially invest in their child’s education, well really in anything. Giving things away for free isn’t sustainable, and devalues whatever good or service is provided. I think in the states its about $750 per year to pay for a girls tuition. The total tuition for a year is a little more than $1,000 per year, which is really hard for the majority of families to afford. As Sega grows in the future, it hopes to have students who are paying full tuition, in its path to becoming fully self-sustaining. But for now, having people sponsor the girls is crucial. Some girls have 3 sponsors, some have 1, and others have none. Girls have to periodically write to their sponsors (we’re now calling them “overseas friends” so students who don’t have sponsors don’t feel left out), or if they don’t have one, they’ll write it to their “oversea friend."
So at 5pm, I was actually surprised to see that all of the Form 1 girls I talked to came to write their bios. I tried to say the few things that I wrote down in Swahili to describe what they needed to write, but I also had an example to show them of a really excellent bio. They got it. They all did fabulous work! Then I took headshots of them to include in their bios. Girls here LOVE having their photo taken and seeing what they look like. After photo, I would tell the girls how beautiful they look and they laughed and hid their faces in embarrassment and happiness, it was so sweet!
But then I was left with like 10 bios in Swahili. Paulina was going to translate them for me, but she was so busy preparing for the USAID visit that she really didn’t have time. Luckily, it just so happened that a former Sega volunteer was visiting. She was at Sega about 3 years ago and then right after that, she moved to Zanzibar to teach at an international school and has been living there ever since. Her school was currently on a break, so she came to visit Sega with two of her friends who are also teaching at the school in Zanzibar. AND she’s pretty much fluent in Swahili, so during her time at Sega (they were staying in the volunteer house with us), she translated all of the bios for me!
So that was Wednesday. USAID visit on Thursday. K’s goodbye celebrations on Friday. And Friday night, K, Alice, and the former Sega volunteer and her friends, and I went to dinner with some other expats (the ones we got pizza with) at a hotel here. It’s the Nashera hotel. Friday nights they have a barbeque kind of thing, with tons of grilled meat, chicken, and fish. I was so happy they had fish!! They had tons of other food – potatoes, fried bananas, salads. It was all so good. 10,000 shillings for all of that! And of course Kilimanjaro beer. That’s my favorite beer here so far. But it’s definitely not as good as the beer at home.. I miss my Ommegang.
We didn’t stay out too late because we all had to get up early in the morning. Ana (Anastasia), the headmistress, invited me to go to Dar es Salaam with her on Saturday. She’s getting married in the middle of August and needs to get a dress for her send-off party. So we left Sega at 6:30 am to catch a 7 am bus to Dar es Salaam to go shopping. Let me tell you about this bus situation. I’m SO happy I went with Ana because people knew I was with her and knew not to bother me, or if they did, she would shoo them away. The problem is that a lot of people here (don’t want to make too many generalizations) assume that all white people are rich, I kind of laugh at that, because let’s be real, I’m not rich by any means. So people will try to steal from you, or bother you because, for example, if they take you in their taxi, they’ll try to charge you more than they should. When we went to get a taxi in Dar, a taxi driver said they were going to charge us 20,000 shillings because I was with her. But she told them no, and that the taxi ride is 15,000 shillings, so he did, thankfully.
After a long and pretty uncomfortable 3(ish) hour bus ride to Dar, we got off the bus. People of course were trying to take me with them, offering taxis and whatever else. But Ana made me stay right in front of here the whole time. The bus station in Dar is currently under construction. As far as I could tell, there wasn’t really a building for the bus station. Just rows and rows of buses. People were walking around selling bottled beverages out of cardboard boxes, vouchers for cell phones, fruit, and other foods. That’s another thing. The buses stop throughout the trip, and as they stop off, people get on to walk up and down the aisle of the bus to sell you things. Convenient, but annoying. Especially because the buses are pretty narrow. The seats are small, so if you’re sitting next to a larger person, you have to stick your body out into the aisle to avoid being squished. So people who walk up and down the aisles just keep whacking you.
When we got out of the bus station, we had to walk a bit to find the bus stop. We had to get on the bus going from Ubungu (bus) to K/KOO (downtown Dar). The street was extremely crowded and the hot hot sun was blazing. We were pretty much walking through a huge saba saba market. The bus just wasn’t coming. And where we were standing, the buses were packed, so Ana decided we should walk to where the bus starts its route so we could be the first people on and get seats. We did that. No bus to be found. She figured we should just take a cab at this point. It was already about 11:30 and we were only going to be there for the day. So we went to find a cab. That was when they tried to charge her 20,000 shillings, rather than 15,000. First of all, 15,000 Tanzanian shillings is about $9 and 20,000 shillings is about $12, just to but things in perspective. The bus into the city from the bus station (the dala dala) costs about 500 Tanzanian shillings which is 30 cents. BIG difference. But because I’m white, people will try to rob me on the dala dala, so I have to be really careful when I’m by myself. I’ve heard some crazy stories.
Our taxi driver made a big loop down in and out of side streets to avoid the traffic on the main road into the city. When we finally arrived in downtown Dar es Salaam, we got out of the taxi and Ana immediately took me aside to exchange phone numbers just in case we lost each other. A guard yelled at us for standing somewhere we weren’t supposed to stand, I guess.
We both realized how hungry we were after such a long journey, so we walked around a bit to look for a place to eat. We ended up at this restaurant that was pretty big, and seemed like another large banda. It was a chill environment – there were tons of guys playing pool, people sitting, eating, drinking. Just really relaxed. We sat down at a fly covered table. I wasn’t feeling that, so I didn’t want to get anything to eat there but I got a huge water bottle and chugged. I was so hot and sweaty and just wanted some ice cold water. Ana got chai (tea) which was served on a platter with a cup of tea, a lot of sugar (Tanzanians like their tea really really sweet) and a little biscuit. After we were feeling refreshed, we headed out to search for her dress.
I’m not exaggerating when I say we went to every single fabric and women’s clothing store we could find. I’m also not exaggerating that these stores were so crowded that I was rubbing against so many people, pushing my way through. A lot of the stores were in long hallways that had their own small section. Clothes were hung against the wall and the storeowner or employee was standing behind a counter to separate themselves and their products from shoppers. People have to point or describe what they want and then someone takes it down and shows it to them. There are tons of places like these and then we walked into other random shops. Again, it’s a very typical third world hustling city.
I honestly thought I was going to pass out. I was SO hot, starving (Ana was really concerned that I didn’t eat when we went to the restaurant), and just exhausted from running in and out of those stores. Oh and we hadn’t been able to find any dresses she liked, so we moved onto fabric stores. She has one dress for her bridesmaids or something that she wants her sendoff dress to match – its kind of a coral peach color. So we walked in and out of fabric stores that had hundreds of rolls of gorgeous fabrics. But nothing. Finally we were passing this little bakery, and Ana asked if I wanted anything. YES. I got this delicious cake thing. I had no idea what I was getting, but I didn’t even care what I ate at that point. But it was SO good. It was a bit more dense than a pound cake, but I guess that kind of thing. I ate as we walked, kind of ignoring my surroundings. People were just walking through the streets and ran to the sidewalk when cars or piki pikis (motorcycle taxis) were coming. The sidewalks are super narrow and there are holes everywhere – like I said, infrastructure in Tanzania is awful. There are stairs leading up to a lot of stores, that break up the narrow, slanted sidewalks.
After a few hours, we were feeling really discouraged. Ana said that because it’s Ramadan, the clothes that people are selling in Dar are very different because they’re selling things for people to wear during Ramadan. It just seemed like dresses to me, but apparently the clothes are different. From what I saw, every store sold the same things.
Anyway, we were so tired and pretty bummed that we came all this way and found nothing. I was looking for long skirts and silky pants that are in style now – baggy pants that have elastic and tie at the waste, and that synch the ankles. I think I have to look for those in Zanzibar. I was also looking for a purse (I saw one that Alice got in Zanzibar and LOVE it – it’s a cross body bag made from this gorgeous fabric. I want that.). We decided it was time to leave and head back to Morogoro.
On our way to the area where dalla dallas (buses) pick people up, we found a little fast food place with fresh juices, burgers, and pizza, that we decided to stop off at for some juice. It was almost like a drive through, but in this case a “walk through,” I guess. Customers stood outside the restaurant and ordered food through the window. There was a counter with some stools against the window for people to sit and eat. It was small though, there were only about 5 stools. Ana and I grabbed stools as soon as we saw people getting up. We needed to give our feet a break. I ordered freshly squeezed mango juice, so refreshing and so delicious! Most of the bottled juice I’ve tried here is way to sweet for me, but this juice was perfect.
Before we had reached this place, Ana had bought meat samosas from a guy selling them out of a plastic bag on the street. When we got to this little fast food place and ordered juice, I was excited to see that they had veggie burgers. I was starving. That vanilla cake was amazing, but not filling. So we sat for a while and chatted. Ana was telling me about the stress of planning her wedding and how she hasn’t been able to sleep and has been having really bad dreams because she’s been so stressed out. She was especially stressed out about her dress. Every store she had gone to in Morogoro looking for this particular color fabric that didn’t have it, told her she would find it in Dar. So here we were, all day in Dar, and didn’t find it. It was just frustrating and discouraging. Even though Ana was really bummed about it, she just laughed it off.
That’s something I’ve noticed about Tanzanians; nothing really phases them. I don’t know if its an American thing, or just me, but when stuff like that happens, I get so frustrated and I have a hard just brushing it off and getting over it. People here just don’t complain about the little things like I know I do at home. Even the buses here. The bus from Morogoro to Dar was really uncomfortable. The seats are tiny; they don’t fit adults, comfortably. So if you have an aisle seat, your body sticks out of the aisle. And there are people coming on the bus, walking up and down the aisles, selling snacks and drinks, bumping against you, not waiting for you to move. But people here don’t get annoyed. They just roll with it. I don’t think Americans would just go with that. I was pissed just sitting on the bus and having that happen to me, but here it’s like eh, whatever. Little things like that just don’t bother people here. They’re just more carefree and able to go with the flow.
Even when Ana and I got back to Morogoro and Michael, one of Sega’s drivers, came to pick us up at the bus station, Ana was telling him how we were unsuccessful, but she was laughing and calling herself a “loser” because she couldn’t find anything. I really admired this in her. She could just laugh it off.
But anyway. Back to Dar. After eating and drinking we felt much better. We walked over to get on the dalla dalla to get back to the bus station. But who knew that getting on a bus would be so hard. The buses all stopped on one big corner, and people would watch what bus they needed; the buses have their route written on them. Ana and I were in downtown and had to get to the bus station, so the bus we were looking for said K/KOO (downtown) on one side of the front and Ubungo (bus station) on the left. These buses came pretty frequently, but people were pushing and shoving their way to the bus, even before it stopped, so they could make sure they get on. You would think that because the bus came so often, there would be less people waiting for the next ones. Nope. I don’t even know where these people were coming from, but we weren’t able to get on one because more and more people kept running past us to get on. People would jump on even when the bus was moving and just hold the door open so they could fit on the bus. It was insane. But again, didn’t phase them.
Ana decided it would be too hard to get on a bus, so we just hopped in a cab. I don’t know what this cab driver was doing, but when we got closer to the bus station, he claimed that he was running out of fuel or something and kept driving back and forth. It’s not like he was trying to get more money from us – it was a set 15,000-shilling taxi drive. Ana thought he just didn’t want to drive us all the way to the bus station. He ended up dropping us off really close to the station, so we walked just a bit. We had to then pay 500 shillings (which is maybe 50 cents) and then found the right bus and got on, after paying 7,000 shillings to someone who was just standing outside the bus. Yes, our bus ride all the way to Morogoro was cheaper than our taxi ride from Dar’s bus station to downtown. Again, something Ana laughed about.
We got on the bus at around 4pm, but didn’t leave until 4:25 because they wait until the bus is completely full. Finally we drove off. Ana and I were chatting for a while. She was telling me about her trip to Paraguay – Sega works with Fundacion Paraguaya, an NGO that promotes entrepreneurship to alleviate poverty (helping with Sega’s business program and new initiatives to make the school self sustaining). She told me how she had to teach herself Spanish there to get by because no one spoke English. Then she played me some Spanish music that she loved. I told her I spoke a bit of Spanish, so she wanted to share this with me.
I tried to sleep, but couldn’t sleep that well because the seats were really uncomfortable and I was in an aisle seat, so people kept bumping me. We were really close to Morogoro when we stopped suddenly. Everyone on the bus was standing up to look at what was going on. Apparently there were so many trucks on the street who had to go over the weighbridge – trucks have to be weighed on the highway and then pay a fee based on their weight. There were so many trucks that there was just a lot of congestion, which is why we were stopped. Ana told me that sometimes when this happens, you can be stopped for 2 hours. In my head I was like “uhh.. what..” But again, she just laughed it off. Luckily we were only stopped for about 25-30 minutes. Not too bad. And we were only another 30 minutes from Morogoro.
We got to the Morogoro bus station, and I swear, piki piki drivers saw my white skin and thought, “oooh white person, money.” Ana and I saw Michael waiting for us in the Sega mini van, so we were good, but I walked off the bus and these piki piki drivers were legit grabbing my arm trying to give me a taxi ride on their motorcycles so they could take me and charge me a lot of money. HA. No. I just pushed them off me and walked right next to Ana, practically rubbing against her. They were following us. Boundaries, people. But as soon as they saw us get to the Sega van, they were like ahhh, Sega. It’s a well respected school in Morogoro, and people know that there are a lot of white volunteers at the school, so they do know to back off, I think.
It was about 8:50pm when we actually got back to Sega, and Ana had texted Matron Stella to save us some dinner, so there was ugali and spinach waiting for us in the banda, so nice to come back to! We ate, then I showered (I felt so dirty and gross after walking around Dar all day and my hair was a frizzy mess), and then passed out.
The next morning (Sunday, July 20), Alice and I went into town to go grocery shopping (Piero’s is the “expat grocery store”). She wanted to have a dress made, so after that, we went to her seamstress, whom she introduced me to, and showed him what she wanted to make. On our way home, we made a quick pitstop at the saba saba market to get some fresh produce – we got tons of carrots, oranges and bananas. At this market, you don’t get to tell them how much of everything you want; you get to choose a pile that you want. We had to split everything because the groups of veggies were huge. Definitely not something one person could eat before it goes bad!
After that, it was time to meet for Sega’s Anti-Ivory Club. Today was a special day for the club because Alice, Michael and I were taking the girls to meet Enock (a former Sega teacher who helps with this club) at Yespa Secondary School to present and teach other students about elephants and how to protect them against poachers. Poachers are people who kill elephants for ivory to sell. There’s a huge market in Asia, especially, for this ivory, but it’s killing hundreds and hundreds of elephants. I can’t remember the exact number, but I think poachers are killing 30 elephants a day (or week, which I know is very different from 30 elephants a day) just in Tanzania.
So anyway, we took the girls on their field trip. It took a while to get them all on the bus on time. After being inspected by Ana, many of the girls had to change into their longer skirts – when they represent Sega, they have to look their best. We took 32 girls with us, out of the 60 or so who are in the club. I think this is actually the most popular club at Sega.
It was about a 35 minute, loud bumpy bus ride. Thirty-two middle school-age girls in one bus. I thought my ears were going to explode. When we got to the school, we took some group photos as the Yespa students were bringing more and more chairs into one room for all of us to meet. Yespa is a boys and girls boarding school, so obviously the Sega girls were extremely excited to see boys. They were totally eyeing the boys and acting a little flirtatious. I love hearing them talk about boys, they get so embarrassed.
When we all meandered into the big classroom, Alice, Enock and I sat at the front of the room facing all of the students and other teachers at Yespa. Yespa is a Christian religious school, so we prayed (I wouldn’t really say that I, personally prayed, but I was there). Then, and this was probably the cutest thing I’ve ever seen, about 10 girls from Sega went to the front of the room and sung a song that they had written about elephants. It went something like “we like you, we love you, we are proud of you…” So sweet. They were practicing it on the bus, but I didn’t realize it was for elephants. Then Enock introduced the club and talked a bit about the background of the issue. I could tell that all of the students were all really interested about it.
He then had Nusura, come to the front to talk a little bit more about the club and start the activity that the girls planned. They came up with 15 questions and answers to ask the students and wrote each down on a separate piece of paper. Fifteen different Sega girls had a question and its corresponding answer, and passed the answers out to Yespa students. They then asked the questions and Yespa students had to answer. The questions were mostly about elephants. They didn’t really use the answers that were passed out, I don’t know if they understood that, but they understood the questions. It was so amazing to see these two different schools come together and learn like this. I would really love to see this happen more often at Sega, and I know the girls do too!
After they went through all of the questions, Enock passed around some photos of the activities that the girls have been doing to protect the elephants. They recently traveled to Dar es Salaam to present. He also handed out a letter that the girls wrote to the President of Thailand, asking for his cooperation to shut down the country’s ivory industry. He presented this to the students as an example of the work that they could do at Yespa. And he even suggested that the two schools work together to protect Tanzanian elephants. Many Yespa students were asking questions and talked about their interest in starting an anti-ivory club at their school!
The girls also presented the shirts that they had made to sell as a fundraiser. No one at Yespa bought one, but I of course had to buy one. How could I not? They have neon green and black and on the back it has a huge picture of elephants and says “Protect, Don’t Kill” and the front it has something in the top left corner about Tanzanian elephants. Elephants are one of my favorite animals so I’m really psyched about my save the elephants t-shirt. And of course I want to support these girls.
After their presentation, everyone left the classroom, and students were getting to know each other, Sega girls were flirting with the boys from a distance. Lots of giggling. They were having me take photos of them. I swear, I’m their personal photographer. Every time I take my camera out they all want pictures of themselves and then everyone comes to me, trying to grab my camera to see the pictures. But anyway. I could see some of the boys looking at the girls having their photos taken, so of course I told them to come over and take some photos with the girls. It was hilarious. They didn’t really talk, but they bonded, just over taking photos together, so cute. The girls were sad to leave their new friends, but we had to get back to Sega.
The bus ride home, was full of laughter and singing. Everyone was just so content. I was so proud of the girls and how amazing they were. It was really an amazing presentation, and they worked hard on it. I love seeing how passionate they are about elephants and this club! What a day.
